


Life After Undeath

by Thiswasmydesign



Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Dracula (TV 2020)
Genre: Character Turned Into Vampire, F/M, Human Experimentation, Human/Vampire Relationship, M/M, Major Character Undeath, Medical Examination, Medical Experimentation, Medical Procedures, Medical Torture, Suicidal Thoughts, human dracula, trigger warning - suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23069569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thiswasmydesign/pseuds/Thiswasmydesign
Summary: For Dracula, accepting death does not mean that he will be allowed the privilege. The death of Zoe Van Helsing does not kill him, it forces him to live again.For Zoe Van Helsing, who had tasted the blood of a vampire, death cannot take her either.(A role reversal fic that fits with canon. Rating may change).
Relationships: Dracula & Zoe Van Helsing
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Life After Undeath

He was drifting with her, feeling the strength ebbing from him even as he fed. Her blood was poison, but now that he had made the choice to surrender to death, it tasted sweet. All of the best poisons did, after all, to tempt the drinker to consume them.

Slowly, he released his arms from around her and laid her upon the floor, stumbling beneath her weight with his weakened form. If he were to be granted these last moments before he was to follow her into death, he could at least give her a good death, dignified. It would not do for her to be found with his corpse on top of her in their strange embrace. She would not appreciate the whispers of her colleagues, who may always otherwise suspect she had been tempted by him, fallen for his charms. In his last moments he could spare her from that shame.

Using his meager strength, he crossed her arms over her chest and straightened himself up as much as he was able, wobbling slightly as he crossed the room to sit and arrange himself in a pose he would not be ashamed to be found in. He almost rocked in his chair from the pounding pain in his chest, forcing him to hiss each time he exhaled. He felt hot, as if he were walking through the desert, and that made so much sense to him. He had sold his soul to the devil and was bound for Hell, so let it take him, burn him. It was done.

But with each exhaled hiss, each throb of pain, he could not stop the unnecessary breaths, and he could count the rhythm of a heartbeat, so familiar to his ears. No longer calling the monster within to the surface.

He looked down to his hands, gripping the arms of the chair from the pain though he had not noticed, saw the veins on the back of the hand standing up from the tightness of the grip. The veins that should not be there. The heartbeat throbbing in his chest as the long dead organ began to function once more.

His weakness was not dying, he realized slowly. No, this was so much worse than that.

He was living.

It couldn’t be true. Not now, not when he had finally accepted death, had chosen it. He stood, staggering without coordination or grace to his decanters of the very finest blood, tipped himself a glass and brought it to his lips. But there it tasted of nothing but iron, and though he swallowed it down dutifully nothing came of it but nausea. He still felt weak, still all too human.

He tossed the glass against the opposite wall. It did break, but without the satisfaction of shattering into a million shards.

It took a moment, even his thoughts seeming to move like molasses, but he understood it now. He wondered if she had, if Zoe Van Helsing had done this to him deliberately.

A part of life was to die. But of course, he had not been alive, and so he could not die. It only seemed logical now that a vital requirement for death had always been life.

He didn’t want this, but now that he was alive, surely he could fix the problem. It could be quick, and there were so many ways. Life was so fragile, and humans better than even he at ending them. Even in this room he could count a dozen ways to die, if he were to do it.

His hands were running through the fabric of the curtains before he heard it. Not at all alike to the whispers of the lives the blood brought to him, a voice in the back of his mind whispered, reminding him.

_This is not what I died for._

It was the voice of Zoe Van Helsing, but he knew without a shadow of doubt that it was not her. He supposed, with a mote of horror, that this was the resurgence of something else all too human. He had, it seemed, developed a conscience in these short moments of breathing.

He tugged at the curtains with a sneer, determined. A conscience was the last thing he wanted. He was a centuries old warlord, for crying out loud, he could barely remember having a conscience even when he had been alive the first time round.

Stubbornly the curtains refused to do more than slide along their rail. He threw his weight behind the pull, and he thought he did hear tear, feel them give just a little. He prepared to do the same again, but stopped as that voice whispered to him again.

_She died for this? She died so you could throw away what she has given you._

He stood for a long moment, still holding the curtain, then let it drift through his fingers and out of his grasp, the sensation somehow crisper than he recalled feeling in his undeath, as though the nerve endings had been deadened when he was.

He tried to justify to himself. He was Count Dracula, it wasn’t possible for him to simply walk out of this place, newly human, and immediately integrate into society. He had no money, no way to absorb the skills required for employment in this new world even if he had wanted to – and he rather felt that he didn’t. He did not like to take orders, no matter what state of life or death he was in.

 _You are unique. You came back from undeath. You would be desired by the Harker institute even more now._ The thoughts were so closely aligned to what he was sure Zoe would have said that he almost thought he was hearing her echo through the blood. _They would feed you, put a roof over your head. You might even be able to find a way to free all of the others that live on against their will._

His thoughts strayed to the graveyard, the stirring of the undead below who suffered so very needlessly. There was pain again, of a different sort now. Vaguely, he recognized it as pity.

He left the light of the window and returned to Zoe’s body, kneeling beside her to search her pockets. Her skin was colder than his now, in the time it had taken for him to come to his conclusions. He retrieved her phone, arranging her once again, and made the call.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments & kudos are a writer's life blood.


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